- Netherlands court case withdrawn- European Parliament negotiating
over access to classified documents
The final version of the new code of access to EU documents was
adopted at the Youth Council on 28 May and wias published in
the Official Journal on 31 May (L 145) and the Regulation
will come into effect 3 days after this. The three institutions
- the Council, Commission and European Parliament - have to provide
a public register of documents (Article 11) within 12 months
(by June 2002). Text (pdf file) Text (Word 97 file)

Netherlands
withdraws case

On 22 September
2000 the Netherlands government decided to take out a court case
in the Court of First Instance against the Council of the European
Union over the "Solana Decision" of 26 July 2000, see:
Netherlands. Sweden: Sweden and Finland: Finland joined the Netherlands
case.

In an unreported
change-around the Netherlands government has withdrawn its case.
This decision coincided with the the meeting of COREPER (the
committee of permanent representatives of the 15 EU governments)
which agreed the "deal" with the European Parliament
on 25 April 2001.

European Parliament
to withdraw its case?

On 13 September
2000 the European Parliament decided to take the Council of the
European Union to the Court of First Instance over the "Solana
Decision" of 26 July 2000: European Parliament However, the parliament
is now negotiating with the Council on the creation of a "Select
Committee" (working title) of three or four senior MEPs
who will be given access to classified documents. It is thought
these MEPs will have to be vetted to meet NATO "standards".
This agreement was understood - during the negotiations over
the new code - to be part of the "deal" between the
Council and the parliament. It is expected that the new agreement
will be followed by the withdrawal of the parliament's court
case.Statewatch
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